The issue of what constituted an active farmer was still a major issue among farmers in Fermanagh, judging by the queries at this week’s President’s Area Meeting of the Ulster Farmers’ Union.in Enniskillen.

It was made clear that DARD would not be accepting any artificial way of enabling a farmer to claim payments while allowing another farmer to actively farm his land.

The President, Ian Marshall, said the issues of the new CAP were consequences of the vertical hybrid model adopted by Northern Ireland which allowed landowners as well as working farmers claim for the Single Farm Payment.

Ian Marshall said from this year onwards, the responsibility lay with the claimant and if someone artificially created a paper trail which was wrong, they could be investigated by DARD.

Answering one of the text questions at the meeting asking if DARD would enforce the active farmer issue, the President said DARD will look firstly at those farmers who claimed only the area payment previously and were suddenly starting to claim as an active farmer in 2015. Another asked if a farmer with no stock who mowed the rushes, would be eligible. The President said provided he met the rules and did not allow anyone else to farm, it was likely to be OK.

Other questions related to winter grazing of sheep from other farmers and selling grass as a crop. The response was that these were likely to be acceptable provided DARD rules were followed.

He explained to farmers how the total pot of money from 2014(the total value of the Single Farm Payment) would be spread over the whole farm to create the new entitlements. Once entitlements have been established, they will be able to be traded from 2016 onwards.

The UFU believe DARD’s administration should be eased this year as there will be around 12,000 fewer claimants. DARD sent out letters to 7,000 to people they felt were inactive and the onus was on them to inform the Department that they were active farrmers. Over 5,000 of these will not be claiming this year and when these are added to the 6,800 who transferred entitlements in May, it left around 12,000 fewer claimants this year.

“The 38,000 claimants will be reduced to 26,000 claimants in 2015 and we would expect DARD to get money out quicker to claimants this year,” he said.

“This is about the production of food. If you are producing food you are entitled to the payments,” said the President.

However when the UFU has asked for advance payment to farmers, the reply from DARD is that claims would not be validated in time but the UFU argument now is if they are dealing with 12,000 fewer claims, they should be able to validate other claims faster.

He referred farmers to the DARD website; www.dardni.gov.uk where there is a CAFRE online calculator to check on the future entitlement values.

In a new development at meetings this year, the Presidential team took questions by text from those in the audience in addition to verbal questions. These questions were transmitted onto a big screen as each section was covered.